Onstage, Tommy Emmanuel executes a move that is not from the playbook of his hero, Chet Atkins.
“My biggest decision every day on tour is, ‘What do I want to start with? How do I want to come out of the gate?’” Emmanuel explains to me over a video call. “A good opener has to have everything. It has to be full of surprise, it has to have lots of good ideas, lots of light and shade, and then, hit it again,” he says, illustrating each phrase with his hands and ending with a punch.“You lift off straightaway with the first song, you get airborne, you start reaching, and then it’s time to level out and take people on a journey.”
In May 2023, Emmanuel played two shows at the Sydney Opera House, the best performances from which have been combined on his new release, Live at the Sydney Opera House. The venue’s Concert Hall, which has a capacity of 2,679, is a familiar room for Emmanuel, but I think at this point in his career he wouldn’t bring a setlist if he was playing Wembley Stadium. On the recording, Emmanuel’s mind-blowingly dexterous chops, distinctive attack and flair, and knack for culturally resonant compositions are on full display. His opening song for the shows? An original, “Countrywide,” with a segue into Chet Atkins’ “El Vaquero.”
“When I was going to high school in the ’60s, I heard ‘El Vaquero’ on Chet Atkins’ record, [1964’s My Favorite Guitars],” Emmanuel shares. “And when I wrote ‘Countrywide’ in around ’76 or ’77, I suddenly realized, ‘Ah! It’s a bit like “El Vaquero!”’ So I then worked out ‘El Vaquero’ as a solo piece, because it wasn’t recorded like that [by Atkins originally].
“The co-writer of ‘El Vaquero’ is Wayne Moss, who’s a famous Nashville session guy who played ‘da da da’ [sings the guitar riff from Roy Orbison’s ‘Pretty Woman’]. And he played on a lot of Chet’s records as a rhythm guy. So once when I played ‘El Vaquero’ live, Wayne Moss came up to me and said, ‘You know, you did my part and Chet’s at the same time. That’s not fair!’” Emmanuel says, laughing.
Atkins is the reason Emmanuel got into performing. His mother had been teaching him rhythm guitar for a couple years when he heard Atkins on the radio and, at 6, was able to immediately mimic his fingerpicking technique. His father recognized Emmanuel’s prodigious talent and got him on the road that year, which kicked off his professional career. He says, “By the time I was 6, I was already sleep-deprived, working too hard, and being forced to be educated. Because all I was interested in was playing music.”
Emmanuel talks about Atkins as if the way he viewed him as a boy hasn’t changed. The title Atkins bestowed upon him, C.G.P. (Certified Guitar Player), appears on Emmanuel’s album covers, in his record label (C.G.P. Sounds), and is inlaid at the 12th fret on his Maton Custom Shop TE Personal signature acoustic. (Atkins named only five guitarists C.G.P.s. The others are John Knowles, Steve Wariner, Jerry Reed, and Atkins himself.) For Emmanuel, even today most roads lead to Atkins.
When I ask Emmanuel about his approach to arranging for solo acoustic guitar, he says, “It was really hit home for me by my hero, Chet Atkins, when I read an interview with him a long time ago and he said, ‘Make your arrangement interesting.’ And I thought, ‘Wow!’ Because I was so keen to be true to the composer and play the song as everyone knows it. But then again, I’m recreating it like everyone else has, and I might as well get in line with the rest of them and jump off the cliff into nowhere. So it struck me: ‘How can I make my arrangements interesting?’ Well, make them full of surprises.”
When Emmanuel was invited to contribute to 2015’s Burt Bacharach: This Guitar’s in Love with You, featuring acoustic-guitar tributes to Bacharach’s classic compositions by various artists, Emmanuel expresses that nobody wanted to take “(They Long to Be) Close to You,” due to its “syrupy” nature. But for Emmanuel, this presented an entertaining challenge.
He explains, “I thought, ‘Okay, how can I reboot “Close to You?’ So even the most jaded listener will say, ‘Holy fuck—I didn’t expect that! Wow, I really like that; that is a good melody!’ So I found a good key to play the song in, which allowed me to get some open notes that sustain while I move the chords. Then what I did is, in every phrase, I made the chord unresolve, then resolve.
Tommy Emmanuel's Gear
“I’m writing music for the film that’s in my head,” Emmanuel says. “So, I don’t think, ‘I’m just the guitar,’ ever.”
Photo by Simone Cecchetti
Guitars
- Three Maton Custom Shop TE Personals, each with an AP5 PRO pickup system
Amps
- Udo Roesner Da Capo 75
Effects
- AER Pocket Tools preamp
Strings & Picks
- Martin TE Signature Phosphor Bronze (.012–.054)
- Martin SP strings
- Ernie Ball Paradigm strings
- D’Andrea Pro Plec 1.5 mm
- Dunlop medium thumbpicks
“And then to really put the nail in the coffin, at the end, ‘Close to you’ [sings melody]. I finished on a major 9 chord which had that note in it, but it wasn’t the key the song was in, which is a typical Stevie Wonder trick. All the tricks I know, the wonderful ideas that I’ve stolen, are from Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie, James Taylor, Carole King, Neil Diamond. All of the people who wrote really incredibly great pop songs and R&B music—I stole every idea I could, and I tried to make my little two-and-a -half minutes as interesting and entertaining as possible. Because entertainment equals: Surprise me.”
I share with Emmanuel that the performances on Live at the Sydney Opera House, which include his popular “Beatles Medley,” reminded me of another possible arrangement trick. In Harpo Marx’s autobiography, Harpo Speaks, I preface, Marx writes of a lesson he learned as a performer—to “answer the audience’s questions.” (Emmanuel says he’s a big fan of the book and read it in the early ’70s.) That happened for me while listening to the medley, when, after sampling melodies from “She’s a Woman” and “Please Please Me,” Emmanuel suddenly lands on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
I say, “I’m waiting for something that hits more recognizably to me, and when ‘While My Guitar’ comes in, that’s like answering my question.”
“It’s also Paul and John, Paul and John, George,” Emmanuel replies. “You think, ‘That’s great, that’s great pop music,’ then, ‘Wow! Look at the depth of this.’”
Often Emmanuel’s flights on his acoustic guitar are seemingly superhuman—as well as supremely entertaining.
Photo by Ekaterina Gorbacheva
A trick I like to employ as a writer, I say to Emmanuel, is that when I’m describing something, I’ll provide the reader with just enough context so that they can complete the thought on their own.
“You can do that musically as well,” says Emmanuel. He explains how, in his arrangement of “What a Wonderful World,” he’ll play only the vocal melody. “When people are asking me at a workshop, ‘How come you don’t put chords behind that part?’ I say, ‘I’m drawing the melody and you’re putting in all the background in your head. I don’t need to tell you what the chords are. You already know what the chords are.’”
“Wayne Moss came up to me and said, ‘You know, you did my part and Chet’s at the same time. That’s not fair!’”
Another track featured on Live at the Sydney Opera House is a cover of Paul Simon’s “American Tune” (which Emmanuel then jumps into an adaptation of the Australian bush ballad, “Waltzing Matilda”). It’s been a while since I really spent time with There GoesRhymin’ Simon (on which “American Tune” was first released), and yet it sounded so familiar to me. A little digging revealed that its melody is based on the 17th-century Christian hymn, “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded,” which was arranged and repurposed by Bach in a few of the composer’s works. The cross-chronological and genre-lackadaisical intersections that come up in popular music sometimes is fascinating.
“I think the principle right there,” Emmanuel muses, “is people like Bach and Beethoven and Mozart found the right language to touch the heart of a human being through their ears and through their senses ... that really did something to them deep in their soul. They found a way with the right chords and the right notes, somehow. It could be as primitive as that.
Tommy Emmanuel has been on the road as a performing guitarist for 64 years. Eat your heart out, Bob Dylan.
Photo by Jan Anderson
“It’s like when you’re a young composer and someone tells you, ‘Have a listen to Elton John’s “Candle in the Wind,”’ he continues. “‘Listen to how those notes work with those chords.’ And every time you hear it, you go, ‘Why does it touch me like that? Why do I feel this way when I hear those chords—those notes against those chords?’ I say, it’s just human nature. Then you wanna go, ‘How can I do that!’” he concludes with a grin.
“You draw from such a variety of genres in your arrangements,” I posit. “Do you try to lean into the side of converting those songs to solo acoustic guitar, or the side of bridging the genre’s culture to that of your audience?”
“I stole every idea I could, and I tried to make my little two-and-a-half minutes as interesting and entertaining as possible. Because entertainment equals: Surprise me.”
“If I was a method actor,” Emmanuel explains, “what I’m doing is—I’m writing music for the film that’s in my head. So, I don’t think, ‘I’m just the guitar,’ ever. I always think it has to have that kind of orchestral, not grandeur, but … palette to it. Because of the influence of Stevie Wonder, Billy Joel, and Elton John, especially—the piano guys—I try to use piano ideas, like putting the third in the low bass a lot, because guitar players don’t necessarily do that. And I try to always do something that makes what I do different.
“I want to be different and recognizable,” he continues. “I remember when people talked about how some players—you just hear one note and you go, ‘Oh, that’s Chet Atkins.’ And it hit me like a train, the reason why a guy like Hank Marvin, the lead guitar player from the Shadows.... I can tell you: He had a tone that I hear in other players now. Everyone copied him—they just don’t know it—including Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, all those people. I got him up to play with me a few times when he moved to Australia, and even playing acoustic, he still had that sound. I don’t know how he did it, but it was him. He invented himself.”
YouTube It
Emmanuel performs his arrangement of “What a Wonderful World,” illustrating how omitting a harmonic backdrop can have a more powerful effect, especially when playing such a well-known melody.
PRS Standard 24 Satin Electric Guitar - Satin Red Apple Metallic
Backline usually refers to amps, speaker cabinets, and drums, and nowadays it simply isn’t cost effective for many artists to tote these items around the country, so “fly-out dates” have become the norm. It’s a viable, cost-effective option to play nationally without having to rent vehicles and hire road crews. Guitarists and bass players can now travel with a chosen instrument and travel rig, usually a modeling amp or pedal, which fits neatly into a gig bag. They then request that the venue or promoter supply the necessary sonic accoutrements. '
Premier Guitar recently caught up with several artists adept at fly-out dates to find out what they bring, what they request, and what they’ve experienced as the touring industry continues to evolve around them.
Joshua Crumbly
Acclaimed bassist Joshua Crumbly (Terence Blanchard, Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah) asks for three different choices for amps on fly-out dates. He provides three options because he wants to give himself the best chance that a backline company or music festival will be able to provide at least one of his preferences or mix and match based on his choices. His first choice is an Ampeg SVT-PRO CL or Ampeg SVT-PRO VR amplifier with an Ampeg SVT 4x10 cabinet. “This is actually my first choice for upright bass tour dates as well,” he adds. His second choice is a Fender Super Bassman amplifier with a Fender 410 Pro cab, and his third choice is a Markbass Little Tube 800 with a Markbass 410 cab.
“I used to travel with my own DI but typically do not anymore,” Crumbly explains. “I now ask for a Rupert Neve RND1 or a Radial DI and for a mic on the cabinet, like an EV-RE20 or something comparable.” Crumbly’s upright bass specs are a ¾-size fully carved or hybrid double bass equipped with a Fishman Full Circle or David Gage Realist pickup (no exceptions about pickup choices) and Thomastik Spirocore Weich bass strings or D’Addario Orchestral Medium tension strings.
A few months ago, Crumbly was out on tour with trumpeter Riley Mulherkar. One of the dates was in Madison, Wisconsin, and he was told ahead of time that there would be one show where the club did not have a bass amp, but a local bassist, named John Christensen, would let him borrow one, and that he’d bring it by before soundcheck. Turns out Christensen brought a powered speaker and a Grace Design FELiX preamp DI—not what Crumbly was expecting. “I had heard some rumblings about it being really good for upright bass, so was not really excited and had suppressed expectations for it in the electric setting I was in,” he recalls. “But it ended up working so great, I remember feeling like it was the first time on the whole tour where I could really hear myself, along with all of the nuance of the instrument.”
One of Crumbly’s goals for this year is to learn how to adjust action and intonation and learn how to make truss rod adjustments. “Traveling, especially long flights, can be very hard on instruments,” he attests. “The action on one of my main basses has been fluctuating a lot, and not every gig has a budget for techs, so as my mentor, Reggie Hamilton, would so eloquently say, ‘Learn all of the skills you can.’”
Lindsay Ell
Photo by Hannah Gray Hall
Pop-country singer-songwriter Lindsay Ell loves mixing dirty and clean amps in stereo whenever she can, so her rider includes two reissue Fender ’65 Deluxe Reverbs and one Vox AC30, or two VOX AC30s and one Matchless DC-30. “I also usually get a backup Deluxe because I know if any one of the amps go down, I can always just rock with a Deluxe Reverb,” she explains. “I’ve had so many gigs where we get to the venue and one of the speakers is blown on one of the amps or the power supply doesn’t work. So, I always feel better getting at least one extra.” The condition of the equipment is a topic that will reverberate throughout this article. Many artists have grown accustomed to requesting more than they need simply because they know gear maintenance can sometimes be questionable, especially outside of primary markets.
To that point, Ell says her craziest backline memory is from a gig in Texas, where her drummer got on a kit only to find it was completely falling apart. “He had to steady the snare between his knees because the stand wasn’t stable,” she recalls. “And the toms were falling apart as soundcheck went along. All the heads were so old, the kick head broke during soundcheck.” They later found out that the backline company had double-booked a bunch of gear, so some guy ended up bringing his personal kit to the gig. “It was in need of a lot of TLC, and we had to duct-tape most of it together to get through the show, but we made it.”
Earl Slick
David Bowie guitar legend Earl Slick usually orders more amps than he needs because he knows from experience the condition might be questionable upon arrival. “When the roadies call in, I have them specifically ask questions about the shape of the amps, and of course they are always great until you get them,” he chuckles. One time, while on tour in the U.K. with Glen Matlock (Sex Pistols), he got an amp that started cutting in and out after the first song. “I don’t know where they were getting the rentals from, and I don’t even remember the amp they brought me,” he recalls. “But it wasn’t even remotely what I asked for.” He eventually kicked the amp off the stage into the back wall. But because he was with Matlock, playing Sex Pistols tunes, the audience loved it. “They thought it was part of the show,” he recalls. “But I was basically having a complete fucking meltdown.”
When Slick did the Double Fantasy (John Lennon and Yoko Ono) show with Tony Levin and Andy Newmark at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, he ordered two VOX AC30s and two Marshall plexi half stacks. “We’d never done this stuff live before, and I didn’t want to take any chances, so the amps start showing up, and the sound man is shitting his pants, and I’m like, ‘Don’t worry dude, it’s only going to be one amp—whichever one works [laughter].’”
Nili Brosh
Israeli-American guitarist Nili Brosh is able to get her Mesa/Boogie Triple Crown 100 rig most of the time, partly because she’s endorsed by the brand, but also many of her tours start in Los Angeles, where she relies on Center Staging to deliver the goods. However, even such a seemingly bulletproof situation isn’t without obstacles when you’re working multiple gigs simultaneously.
“If I’m going on tour, it’s easy to start from L.A.,” she proclaims. “Last year I was doing a couple of gigs at the exact same time and all of my rigs were coming from Center Staging. And a lot of the time they’ll provide a backup as well. So, I flew in from a Dethklok tour to make a Danny Elfman rehearsal, and cartage was like, ‘Here’s your rig.’ And there was one Triple Crown and one other Mesa head, a Mark Series or something, and I was like, ‘Hmmm … I know they know me, and they know what rig I prefer, so why would they send me a Mark-series backup?’ Then I realized, ‘I think I am using all the Triple Crowns they have right now, that’s why they sent this one [laughter].’” She ran into a tech a few months later who confirmed that she was in fact using all of Center Staging’s Triple Crowns. “The good thing about Mesa is that if the Triple Crown isn’t available, usually what I do see is a Triple Rectifier. It’s not really my kind of amp, but I’ve definitely made it work. It’s nice to have a 3-channel tube amp show up at a fly date.”
Brosh does have a backup travel modeling rig, which is Headrush MX5. “It’s tiny and fits in a backpack,” she says. “I usually carry it in my suitcase anyway because it’s a great little rig to do some quick recording or even if I just go DI.”
In the end, Brosh says it’s all about how you manage expectations and that savvy players should be able to make just about any situation work. “Whether you get what you ask for or not, there are so many solutions, and there are a lot more fallback options to put in your suitcase than there’s ever been before.”
Rudy Sarzo
Photo by Coffman Rock Shots
Quiet Riot bassist Rudy Sarzo was playing Ampeg before he started using backline rentals. So, when the band transitioned from traditional road tours to fly dates, after witnessing how Blue Öyster Cult was doing it, Sarzo was able to transition seamlessly. “I could always find an Ampeg, even in places like Bulgaria or Russia,” he attests. “Aguilar is very popular, too.”
Nowadays, Quiet Riot does any combination of casinos, festivals, package tours, and clubs, so Sarzo knows his way around rental gear and what to expect. “Using rental gear, the preamp tubes take the most abuse,” he explains. “Now, I ask for an SVT 4-PRO. It has a master volume. It’s the only Ampeg that backline companies seem to have plenty of, and if you go power amp in with your own preamp, you can use the master to control the volume and bypass a potentially bad preamp tube.”
Sarzo admits he’s always adjusting to improve these kinds of situations, and trying, as much as possible, to get his bass tone out of the hands of the front-of-house sound guys. “A lot of times we’re on bills with multiple bands and there just isn’t enough time for me to sit down with them and explain what I need,” he says. To that effect, he’s recently returned to Ultimate Ears in-ear monitors (IEM) and a Neve DI that goes in between the amp and the speaker cab. “You can go XLR out from the Neve, so I get the Ampeg tone in my in-ears instead of a dry DI tone.”
Jennifer Batten
Some artists have adjusted to this new touring paradigm by becoming completely self-contained and foregoing the need to request or utilize any backline. Former Michael Jackson guitarist Jennifer Batten, for example, no longer requires backline support when she hits the road. “I go direct and everything I need is in my carry-on,” she explains.
Aside from her guitar, Batten travels with a BluGuitar Amp1 and either the BluGuitar Nanocab or Fatcab, along with a Line 6 HX Stomp XL Multi-effects Floor Processor. “When I show up, they give me a left and right XLR output and a wireless in-ear mix pack, and I’m done. I’m also usually capable of doing my own mix from an iPad that I bring if the engineer is set up with a router to send the tracks to me.”
Marcus Nand
Photo by ShotZ Fired Performance Photography
Marcus Nand, guitarist for Mike Tramp’s White Lion, is another musician who has utilized technology to scale back his touring needs. “Adapting to various conditions while maintaining consistency is a challenge when on tour,” he explains. “For the last few tours, I’ve used a Kemper, and we premixed the show using only IEM monitoring and no sound on stage. We even used digital drums to eliminate the unpredictability of the occasional inebriated soundman on club tours.”
Even though he describes his travel rig as a great and consistent setup, Nand admits it can be a little sterile. “Something shifted recently after playing a show with the Dead Daisies through good old tube amps. I thought, ‘Man that was fun!’ I realized I missed the tactile, dynamic magic and the raw feel of speakers pushing air, the unpredictable nuances, the connection between player and amp that makes things come alive, so we’ve reverted back to amps on stage and an acoustic drum kit.”
For this, Nand is now also using a BluGuitar Amp1. “It weighs about two pounds, delivers up to 100 watts of Marshall-like tone, and fits right into my carry-on.” All he now needs from the backline supplier is a decent Marshall 4x12 speaker cabinet. “There are so many great products on the market—for me, consistency in sound, reliability, and portability when traveling are the determining factors.”
Farees
At the 2022 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival with Leo Nocentelli’s debut show presenting his acclaimed record Another Side, Tuareg guitarist Farees borrowed one of Nocentelli’s parlor acoustic guitars for the show. “Likely a D’Angelico, if I remember right,” he recalls. “It wasn’t my usual type of instrument, but adapting is essential. I changed the strings, adjusted it for better playability—which is crucial for this kind of music—but its built-in amplification system was very basic and prone to feedback, with no equalization or piezo option.”
When he hit the stage, he realized he’d been wrongly given a large electric guitar amp—placed directly behind him. “It was probably a Fender Twin Reverb, and for an acoustic guitar like that, with no piezo or alternative amplification, this setup would’ve been a feedback nightmare and could’ve ruined the sound for the entire show.” But Farees stayed calm and acted quickly. “I asked the stage engineer to move the amp far behind me, set it to a low, clean volume, slightly boost the bass, and cut the high and mid frequencies. I also asked him to mic the amp and find something to cover the guitar’s soundhole to minimize feedback.”
Farees says that performance taught him a lot about staying adaptable under pressure and making the best of unpredictable circumstances. “On a big stage, it’s not just about playing your part—it’s about working with what you’re given, solving problems quickly, and keeping the energy high so the music and the moment shine—not for yourself, but for everyone involved, both within and beyond the band.”
